Errors, or plot points?

[tinyjo]

I read the new Potter on Sunday evening by illegal means (I plan to buy the paperback but didn't want to be spoilered) so it's possible these items weren't in the published text but there are two things nagging at me vaguely and I can't decide whether they're mistakes on JKR's part or are hooks for cunning tricks in the next book.

1) Harry rules out his father or his friends as possibilities for the Half Blood Prince based on the printing date of the book. Now this is slightly shaky logic because it assumes the prince was the first owner of the book but if we accept it then doesn't that also rule out Snape? He was at school at the same time as they were. If we rule out Snape on the basis of timing, I suspect Voldemort to be honest. Could even be another horcrux.

2) Kreacher and Dobby apparate and disapparate inside Hogwarts. I don't know why I've never noticed this before. Does the prohibition not apply to house-elves? Can either side use that information?

Comments

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, but I know that it's generally accepted and has been since before Book 5 (someone was going over their look of pre-book 5-rest-of-series expectations). I'd expect it would have been discussed around the time we first saw Dobby, if at all, but I don't remember off hand.